Today, presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani told Wolf Blitzer that water-boarding, a technique considered by many human rights groups to be torture (not to mention Senator John McCain who knows a thing or two about torture), might be called for in a “once in a lifetime situation, once in a decade situation.” He held that in a “general manner,” however, waterboarding would be “inappropriate.” Of course, this raises the question as to how such torture methods would be practiced, how frequently they would be employed, and how the “appropriate” use of them would be discerned and regulated. In other words, in keeping the option available in the interrogation of prisoners and terrorists, no matter how particular and infrequent its use may be, the United States would be sanctioning the use of torture.
Under which conditions could appeal to waterboarding be appropriately made according to Giuliani? Here are his exact words:
You have a terrorist…there’s a bomb that’s gonna go off in a day, or might go off in a day, and he knows about information that could stop the killing of thousands and thousands of people.
Again, however, if there’s a once in a lifetime situation and you have a person who may know about a massive attack that’s gonna go on.
These words, spoken by Giuliani today, sounded awfully familiar to me. That’s because Gerald, the keeper of one of the single most popular Catholic blogs, The Cafeteria is Closed, wrote the following just last week:
In any case, I’m sure waterboarding is no fun and that it is actually horrifying. My point is that IF there were a situation of a choice between waterboarding a terrorist OR having, say, Houston be atomized, I’ nonetheless approve of it, since the lives of millions are the greater good than the comfort of a terrorist. I’d PREFER getting the information by appealing to his humanity.
I just think it’s more humane to save a million by making one evil man panic for a few minutes, if that choice presented itself.
I am talking about a desperate situation, not torture as an everyday means. Obviously, the greater good would be the survival of millions. At least in my book. I can only tell you what my conscience tells me. I certainly would hope my president would agree.
I’m not saying it’s good to waterboard, simply less bad if the alternative were millions dying.
I almost wonder if Giuliani treated himself to a morsel from the Cafeteria just before his interview!
Notwithstanding that waterboarding, which physically and mentally simulates drowning and imminent death, is much more than a few minutes of “panic” and lack of “comfort,” there seems to be little doubt from those who have experienced, witnessed and/or studied the methods of waterboarding that it is both mental and physical torture. The Catholic Church has condemned all mental and physical torture as intrinsically evil in each and every instance of its use.
The Second Vatican Council condemned any form of mental and physical torture as a fundamental violation of human integrity and a “supreme dishonor”to God:
Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They poison human society, but they do more harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are supreme dishonor to the Creator. (Gaudium et spes, 27)
Pope John Paul II spoke even more forcefully on torture, describing any of its forms as “intrinsically evil” regardless of ulterior motives for their uses, such as obtaining information from possible terrorists:
Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature “incapable of being ordered” to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church’s moral tradition, have been termed “intrinsically evil” (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances. Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions, the Church teaches that “there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object”. The Second Vatican Council itself, in discussing the respect due to the human person, gives a number of examples of such acts: “Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat labourers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons: all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the Creator.” (Veritatis Splendor, 80).
So what can we make of Giuliani’s and Gerald’s clearly unorthodox and immoral suggestions? First, they both have succumbed to ethical consequentialism and situation ethics, which are diametrically opposed to the entire moral tradition of the Catholic Church. Second, their folly cannot be explained away as an appeal to the principle of double effect, for the intended outcome (potentially saving “thousands” of people) is procured only by means of a direct intention to commit the intrinsically evil act (torture). In this scenario, the evil act (torture) is not an unintended consequence. Third, an intrinsically evil act is to be committed in actuality in order to obtain merely potential information on a potential disaster. Fourth, it seems that, unsurprisingly, Catholic faith and morals are suspended and abstracted from the concrete and the particular. There are some conceivable situations, perhaps occurring only “once in a lifetime” or “once a decade” (perhaps even once a year) where universal ethical principles become conditioned ethical pariahs.
Gerald and Giuliani…strange bedfellows, indeed. But then again, claiming to be Catholic is not necessarily followed by thinking Catholic. The assault on the Catholic faith arrives from many different fronts.
December 20, 2007 at 4:51 am
I am reminded of words from the movie Becket: “Sheathe your sword, Robert de Beaumont, on peril of thy soul, which is in the gravest danger!”
Our use of torture may save lives, but we torture on peril of our souls.
December 20, 2007 at 4:53 am
Man, alive…
This blog needs to have a drink once in a while. Or how about take in a fun Sci-Fi movie like Serenity! In that film River Tam goes ape$#*t on some folks who had surrendered their humanity at the door. I don’t say terrorists go as far as Reavers, but it often appears they aspire to that destiny.
Oh! And my cousin underwent worse treatment than waterboarding as part of Ranger training. Without the NYTimes or Vox Nova to declare him a victim, he’s just another notch on Dick Cheney’s belt. Oh, the HUMANITY!
December 20, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Oh! And my cousin underwent worse treatment than waterboarding as part of Ranger training. Without the NYTimes or Vox Nova to declare him a victim, he’s just another notch on Dick Cheney’s belt.
Right, because undergoing physical and psychological torment against one’s will is the same as freely choosing to enlist in the Army and freely accepting to be trained to be among the Army’s elite with the full helping of benefits that completion of Ranger training brings.
Perhaps you have watched one too many Sci-Fi movies.
December 20, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Since when does free submission to a grave evil make it less of a grave evil, Policraticus?
Could one argue that signing up to fight against America, knowing that one will be tortured for information if one is caught, is then permission? Why not?
December 20, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Could one argue that signing up to fight against America, knowing that one will be tortured for information if one is caught, is then permission? Why not?
Yeah, and one could argue that going to Iraq is consent to have one’s head sawn off for an Internet video. One could argue anything at all, if one has taken leave of one’s reason.
December 20, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Actually, regarding “torture” as millitary training, I think one could say that in volunteering to undergo such training one is cooperating in the evil of those who are conducting the torture or training, i.e. one is facilitating and helping other people do evil things to the facilitator/helper.
December 20, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Precisely my point, Zippy.
December 20, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Let me give another example. If a policeman threatens an armed convenience store robber with a gun, ordering him to fall to the ground, he’s obviously putting the robber in fear of his life or significant harm. Suppose the robber refuses, and the policeman shoots him in the leg, forcing the robber to the ground. He has physically harmed the robber, and put the robber in even more fear of his life. Further suppose this was at night, the store was closed, the policeman could have escaped the store, and nobody else was there.
Is what the policeman did torture?
December 20, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Zippy says : “One could argue anything at all, if one has taken leave of one’s reason.”
Reason dictates that evil and morality are unquantifiable. The former pollutes; the latter purifies.
Guantanamo pollutes.
December 20, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Zippy’s point, Jonathan, seems lost on you. First, you seem to be suggesting that no matter which crime is committed, the authoritarian punishment need not be proportional or just. Second, you seem to suggest that signing up for the Army AND THEN accepting the elite staus of Ranger, which includes a full knowledge of the required TRAINING, is of the same degree of freedom and consequence as being tortured against one’s will for either consenting to or being suspected of consenting to terrorism. That’s some very strange ethical thinking there.
December 20, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Policraticus,
My reasoning runs thusly:
The encyclical cited above says: “whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself” is grave evil. And, in fact, the definition includes “wilful self-destruction.” If that is the case, the encyclical gives no room for “freely choosing to enlist in the Army and freely accepting to be trained to be among the Army’s elite with the full helping of benefits that completion of Ranger training brings” and your distinction between freely chosen and unfreely chosen must fail.
Authoritarian punishment should always be proportional to the crime committed. But, we are not discussing punishment here, but what actions may be taken by an individual in authority. I am trying to get at the difference between what I would say is legitimate and even moral coercive action, such as a parent placing child in room for child’s refusal to tell where s/he hid a toy the child took from and not allowing the child out until the child agrees to tell the parent, my policeman scenario above, or many other similar actions, which all seem to fall within the definitions of the encyclical, and those that I would consider immoral, such as placing burning needles under fingernails to coerce information.
Where is the line to be drawn and why? The terms used in the encyclicals (at least those cited above) are so broad so as to draw in a wide spectrum of human behavior. Where is the line and why?
December 20, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Poli
you seem to suggest that signing up for Al Qaeda AND THEN accepting the elite staus of Terrorist, which includes a full knowledge of the required QUESTIONING when captured, is of the same degree of freedom and consequence as being tortured for volunteering for the defense of their country. That’s some very strange ethical thinking there.
December 20, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Jonathan,
I’m not sure I follow you. Are you saying that when a parent tells a child to go to their room, this is an example of “whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself”? That strains credulity.
December 20, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Tim,
When you say “QUESTIONING” what do you mean? If it’s just a euphemism for torture, then I see nothing strange about Policraticus’ ethical thinking. If it means something else (like, I don’t know, questioning) then you haven’t accurately described Policraticus’ position.
December 20, 2007 at 4:00 pm
He used exactly the same type of euphemism by calling the dreaded waterboarding “TRAINING”.
Either waterboarding is torture, or it isn’t. Circumstances or volunteering shouldn’t have any impact on an “intrinsically evil” act. I get slammed all the time here for mentioning intent and circumstances, but apparently it’s par for the course for anyone else.
December 20, 2007 at 4:07 pm
It seems a germane point is lost on many torture-apologists: the reliability of information given under stress. Unless, of course, the torturers have implanted some SF brain wire to assure only the truth be told. What’s to stop a nuclear terrorist under torture from giving all the details–very convincing details–only for the wrong city?
Not only are torture advocates morally depraved, but they’re advocating incompetence to boot. Just what we need in the 21st century to keep America safe. Give me civil liberties and a moral backbone over revengeful foam-mouths and wussie politicians any day.
December 20, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Nice try, Teutonic Tim.
December 20, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Jonathan,
I suppse under your interpretation of the encyclical, training for a marathon or high scholl basketball practice would be intrinsically evil. Guess you forgot about the whole free choice vs. coerced will part of that same encyclical. I find it at once comical and sad that you are stretching so much to justify torture, even to the point of butchering the clear teaching of the Catholic Church.
December 20, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Are you saying that when a parent tells a child to go to their room, this is an example of “whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself”? That strains credulity.
No, that’s not what I am saying, Blackadder. I am attempting to get at the reasoning why such an action by a parent (or an action by the state in locking up a homicidal maniac or an action by a policeman in shooting a robber who refuses to disarm) are different from actions considered to be torturous because they “attempt to coerce the will itself” or “coerce the spirit.”
When I asked “Where is the line to be drawn and why?”, I would think that would indicate that I believe there is a difference between the two. If not, let me be more explicit. There is a difference between parental attempts to influence a child to give the parent information and torture – but it is difficult to perceive in the language cited above.
I think there is a difference. But, the difference is not to be found in the language cited above. It must therefore be teased out of the language.
Why
December 20, 2007 at 4:21 pm
Drop that last “why”….
December 20, 2007 at 4:23 pm
I don’t think we should assume that what is done during training is necessarily licit. But if anyone genuinely cannot tell the prima facie difference between training and torture, and further the difference between subduing an actively resisting prisoner and torturing a subdued prisoner, even if he can’t put that difference to words in a way to satisfy every possible relentless quest for a loophole on behalf of the Bush administration, then that person has lost his faculty to reason morally.
December 20, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Policraticus, I have not personally attacked you. This conversation would do much better if you would avoid attempting to analyze my motives (”stretching so much to justify torture”), unless you can truly find support for that somewhere in my language, and simply respond to my thoughts.
You give free will too much credit – under your language, a suicide (whether violent or “medically-assisted) is not intrinsically evil, for it is arguably (and I would say, in some circumstances truly) freely chosen. There must be more to it than free will…
December 20, 2007 at 4:29 pm
TT: Either waterboarding is torture, or it isn’t.
JN: Well, no. It might sometimes be torture and sometimes not be. Saying that either waterboarding is torture or it isn’t is like saying that either sex is rape or it isn’t. Some sex is rape; some isn’t.
TT: Circumstances or volunteering shouldn’t have any impact on an “intrinsically evil” act.
JN: Yes and no. One needs to distinguish between the specifying circumstances or specifying intent of an act, and any further circumstances or intent which aren’t part of the definition of that act. So, for example, rape is sex without consent. That a given act is an act of rape does involve circumstances (e.g. the fact that it involves sex), but that doesn’t prove that rape isn’t intrinsically evil. That rape is intrinsically evil implies only that if a given act is an act of rape, there are no further circumstances that would justify that act (same for intent).
December 20, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Zippy,
I think that it’s evident that there IS a difference. But, we cannot stop there. Precise reasoning is required to elucidate the difference, and to inform others as to why certain parts of the encyclical do NOT cover a more broad spectrum of behavior than seems reasonable.
December 20, 2007 at 4:33 pm
You give free will too much credit – under your language, a suicide (whether violent or “medically-assisted) is not intrinsically evil, for it is arguably (and I would say, in some circumstances truly) freely chosen.
Free consent to rigorous training in the Army is quite different than freely taking one’s own life. Not only are the agents different, but so too are the impact and effect. Again, you twist concepts rather than accepting the plain truth of the matter: All torture is intrinsically evil, and torture is, by definition, the infliction of torment by one agent onto another agent against the latter’s will.
December 20, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Jonathan,
I agree that there’s a difference between parental attempts to influence a child to give the parent information and torture. What I don’t understand is why you think the language quoted from the encyclical implies otherwise. Imagine a parent reading the encyclical. Do you think there is any parent who would read the above quoted language, and think to himself (”My God! By sending little Timmy to his room, I’ve been torturing him!”)? Of course not. The idea wouldn’t even cross his mind. And if you mentioned this as a possible implication of the passage, he would probably look at you like you were insane.
December 20, 2007 at 4:55 pm
If waterboarding is an intrinsic evil, then no circumstance can justify its use, not even training. For neither intention nor circumstances make an intrinsic evil good. Otherwise women who voluntarily obtaintheir abortion and doctors who voluntarily perform them would be right.
If waterboarding is okay in training then it is not itself evil, but the intention or circumstances may make it so. If this is the case it is now just a matter of showing in what circumstances waterboarding is licit.
December 20, 2007 at 4:58 pm
What cannot be said is waterboarding is intrinsically (always) evil and okay in training.
December 20, 2007 at 5:02 pm
What cannot be said is sex is not okay with the drunk passed out woman but okay with your wife.
What cannot be said is hitting your child’s bottom is okay but hitting the cute co-ed’s bottom isn’t okay.
What cannot be said is a police officer holding someone in a jail cell is okay but me holding someone in a jail cell is kidnapping.
December 20, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Blackadder,
This is the excerpt with which I am concerned:
whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others of their like are infamies indeed.
Set out in list form, one could read that language as follows:
Things that violate the integrity of the human person include:
1) Mutilation
2) Torments inflicted on body or mind
3) Attempts to coerce the will itself
Things that insult the human dignity include:
1) subhuman living conditions
2) arbitrary imprisonment
3) deportation
4) slavery
5) prostitution
6) the selling of women and children
7) disgraceful working conditions
My concern is specifically with “attempts to coerce the will itself.” Now, as you and I agree, no parent would consider their actions with children torture. But, that agreement, and the extreme unlikelihood that any parent would consider that child punishment torture, do not help with the idea that “attempts to coerce the will itself” is part of a list of things that violate the integrity of the human person. I am still looking for the line, and statements that nobody reasonable would think it otherwise do not help with WHY no reasonable person would equate a child’s punishment in the way I have described with torture.
The situation where a terrorist admits to knowing vital information but refuses to tell of it, and one where a child admits to having hidden another child’s toy but refuses to tell where it is are very close. Yet, I believe there is a difference.
December 20, 2007 at 5:11 pm
MZ,
Last I heard sex is not an intrinsic evil. That is unless you’re a Puritan. A parent and the state have authority to perform certain acts. The circumstances render sex a moral evil or good. An individual cannot do things the state can – even a parent. The question is this the case in waterboarding. I believe you think it okay in training. Thus, like sex it is not an intrinsic evil. The only question is why it is or is not okay in interrogation.
December 20, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Jonathan,
Why in the world would you think sending a child to their room is an example of attempting to coerce the will itself? That doesn’t make any sense. If one was determined, one could, I suppose, come up with some absurdly broad definition of what it means to “coerce the will itself” such that virtually any attempt to influence another person would fall under that definition. But why anyone would want to do that, I don’t know.
I don’t agree that the situation “where a terrorist admits to knowing vital information but refuses to tell of it, and one where a child admits to having hidden another child’s toy but refuses to tell where it is are very close.” To me they seem pretty different. But if you think that they are very close, but different, maybe you ought to say what you think the difference is.
December 20, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Blackadder,
Because they are quite different it also raises the question of whether the state then has the licit authority to compel the terrorist to tell. The state does have the authority to defend society. If waterboarding is not intrinsically evil, then why can this not be done?
It does not seem that freedom from coercion of the will is absolute. Even Dignitatis Humanae seems to set a limit on this freedom:
7. The right to religious freedom is exercised in human society: hence its exercise is subject to certain regulatory norms. In the use of all freedoms the moral principle of personal and social responsibility is to be observed. In the exercise of their rights, individual men and social groups are bound by the moral law to have respect both for the rights of others and for their own duties toward others and for the common welfare of all. Men are to deal with their fellows in justice and civility.
Furthermore, society has the right to defend itself against possible abuses committed on the pretext of freedom of religion. It is the special duty of government to provide this protection. However, government is not to act in an arbitrary fashion or in an unfair spirit of partisanship. Its action is to be controlled by juridical norms which are in conformity with the objective moral order. These norms arise out of the need for the effective safeguard of the rights of all citizens and for the peaceful settlement of conflicts of rights, also out of the need for an adequate care of genuine public peace, which comes about when men live together in good order and in true justice, and finally out of the need for a proper guardianship of public morality.
December 20, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Also, just the everyday power of the state to coerce wills. I don’t want to pay my taxes but do so every April 15th even though it is against my will. The state imprisons people indefinitely who are unwilling to testify in court. I’m sure there are lots of others. I don’t think the Church teaches that the will of the individual trumps all other concerns.
December 20, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Phillip,
Waterboarding is not intrinsically evil. Torture is. When waterboarding is used as a form of torture it is intrinsically evil. When it is a form of training it is not. My sense is that Policraticus would agree with this, even if his article isn’t entirely clear on this point.
December 20, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Brother,
I think you and I are in agreement. It just leaves the question of when, if ever, the state can do so during interrogation.
December 20, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Phillip,
I’m glad we are in agreement on this.
Policraticus,
Am I right in assuming this? Or perhaps you mean that waterboarding is always torture, but that what happens in SERE is not ‘waterboarding’ but ’simulated waterboarding’? Just wondering.
December 20, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Blackadder,
1) The child took the toy, admits it, but refuses to tell where s/he hid it. (An act of will)
2) The parent asks, gets no response, and sends the child to his / her room until the child tells where the toy is. (An attempt to coerce the will.)
1) An armed robber breaks into a closed convenience store to rob it, and refuses to drop a weapon when ordered to by a police officer. (An act of will)
2) The police officer draws a weapon and orders the robber to drop their weapon. (An attempt to coerce the will through threat of violent harm or death.)
3) The police officer shoots the robber in the leg. (A further attempt to coerce the will through threat and use of violent harm.)
4) The robber still has the gun and is waving it around so the police officer steps on the robbers hand, breaking several fingers. (A forceful breaking of will through physical violence.)
1) A terrorist admits that s/he know the location of a “dirty bomb” but refuses to tell where it is hidden. (An act of will)
2) The government asks, gets no response, and waterboards the terrorist until the terrorist admits where the bomb is. (An attempt to coerce the will.)
In each case, a wrong (act of will) is being committed against others or society, the individual who committed the wrong is subject to authority, the authority exercises an act of coercion (physical or mental) in an attempt either to rectify the wrong or prevent further wrong from occurring. In two of the cases, no permanent physical harm is produced, and in two of the cases, no permanent mental harm (though perhaps that is questionable) is produced.
One could turn to the spiritual harm to the inducer of the coercion. In other words, the parent, the police officer, and the torturer. Of course, then one might be able to justify waterboarding one terrorist in order to save many lives if the torturer was acting always under the desire to save lives. I don’t think that direction helps.
December 20, 2007 at 6:48 pm
If waterboarding is equally painful and scary to the Ranger and the Terrorist, how then can it not be defined as torture? I keep reading here how anyone who has read an account or seen it done can do nothing other than recognize it is torture…
So now I’m hearing waterboarding is only a torture if the intent of the performer is malevolent?
December 20, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Jonathan,
You seem to be confusing coercion in general with coercing the will in particular. If I tie a guy up and drag him to Cleavland, I may have forced him to be in Cleavland, but I haven’t forced him to will anything. Likewise, if I go up to a guy with a gun and say “your money or your life,” and he gives me the money, I may have used coercion against him, but I haven’t coerced his will. He still had the ability to choose whether or not to give me the money. Attempts to coerce the will, by contrast, aim not at depriving a person of the ability to do something, but of depriving a person of the ability of free choice in the first place.
December 20, 2007 at 7:04 pm
“If waterboarding is equally painful and scary to the Ranger and the Terrorist”
It’s not equally painful and scary to the Ranger and the Terrorist. What in the world gave you the idea that it was?
December 20, 2007 at 7:04 pm
My last post for a while as I am very busy. TeutonicTim is right. Waterboarding has been presented as the poster child for torture on numerous blogs often with pictures of how it is carried out. The comments have been “Look at this. It is obviously torture.” The implication often being that waterboarding was clearly torture and thus clearly intrinsically evil.
Now it seems it is not obviously torture but okay if one volunteers for it or if it is only a little bit of waterboarding. The sad part is its taken 3+ years on the Catholic Blogoshphere to recognize that waterboarding is not in itself evil. Or maybe it is. Or maybe not. Or whatever.
December 20, 2007 at 7:14 pm
If [simulated waterboarding in training] is equally painful and scary to the Ranger [as actually waterboarding is to] the Terrorist, …
It isn’t. (Or if it is, then the training is immoral torture).
Restraint, punishment, training, and torture are all manifestly different things. They are so manifestly different that I am forced to conclude that people who play word games pretending not to immediately see the difference (even if they cannot articulate it with precision) have badly damaged moral faculties; they don’t need argument, they need to spend a few years in a hair shirt as penance, to realign their consciences. (And they probably will, that or its equivalent, barring an indulgence).
Hint: an attack during training isn’t “attempted murder”.
Another hint: if you read the entire encyclical that y’all find so befuddling, and try to make sense rather than nonsense out of it, you may notice the part where it says that if you are thinking about the object of an act as something strictly of the physical order you aren’t thinking about it right; and if (likewise) you are thinking about it as something strictly of the interior intentional order you also aren’t thinking about it right. This leads to all kinds of verbal spaghetti on the part of the clueless. But that doesn’t excuse all the tergiversation over the oh-so-befuddling difference between torturing a captive and punishing a child.
December 20, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Um, do they not feel the same reflex actions of simulated drowning and fear of death?
What in the world makes you think the Ranger enjoys it and it absolutely terrifies the terrorist?
It’s like saying cutting off your finger would feel better if you volunteered for it
December 20, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Waterboarding is not intrinsically evil. Torture is. When waterboarding is used as a form of torture it is intrinsically evil. When it is a form of training it is not. My sense is that Policraticus would agree with this, even if his article isn’t entirely clear on this point.
Brother, I agree entirely with this, and I regret not making this clear in my post.
If waterboarding is equally painful and scary to the Ranger and the Terrorist, how then can it not be defined as torture? I keep reading here how anyone who has read an account or seen it done can do nothing other than recognize it is torture…
I think Brother’s clarification helps with this. Waterboarding, used as torture to extract information and/or confession, is instrinsically evil. Now, if waterboarding is used in Ranger training (I was not aware that is, and I have been arguing as if it were not a part of this training), I would suspect we would have to weigh in the fact that the trainee agrees to undergo waterboarding for the purpose of formation and training rather than against his/her will in order to extract information.
December 20, 2007 at 7:19 pm
TT: again, if you can’t immediately and without reflection tell the difference between training and torture, you need a few years of intense penance to fix your badly damaged conscience. I recommend you get started now, rather than leaving it to Purgatory. Nothing I can say in words as an argument is going to make a difference intellectually if you really, genuinely do lack the faculty to see the difference.
December 20, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Attaching “always gravely evil” to a specific action rather than what the action consists of is usually a mistake.
E.g.:
Shooting someone is not itself necessarily a grave evil, murdering someone is.
Imprisoning someone is not itselfnecessarily evil, but imprisoning someone for no just cause is.
If there are certain actions that are always immoral, I would argue it’s not because the action itself is always evil, but because it’s practically impossible to perform that action in any way that is not the commission of a particular sin.
If there were a Q Bomb which blew up a whole continent at a time, it would not be the act of “using q bomb” that was itself gravely immoral, but rather the act of killing millions of innocent persons which was immoral, and which one could not use the Q Bomb without also performing.
In the case of torture, it is not a specific method that can be inherently immoral, but rather there might be physical actions which are never proportion forms of defense or punishment and are therefore only able to used as means of inflicting physical and/or mental pain on someone for that purpose itself.
If Gerald is saying something morally credible, he’s saying that in certain very rare circumstances waterboarding might be a proportional punishment for refusal to divulge knowledge about a terrorist attack. If Policratus is saying something morally credible, it is that waterboarding is never a proportional punishment for this refusal (I suppose one could also see th refusal as an attack and the action as a defense, but the principle of proportionality would still apply) and so any situation in which waterboarding is performed will necessarily be a situation of sin.
Either way, I think McCain has shown himself far more sensible than others like Giuliani in saying that it is good for us as a nation to ban such things, and that if that once-in-a-decade situation comes up, an interrogator should have the added incentive on the side of restraint that he’d have to justify his violation of the law.
December 20, 2007 at 7:28 pm
“Um, do they not feel the same reflex actions of simulated drowning and fear of death?”
Well, no. They don’t. They don’t fear death because they know they aren’t about to die and that the people involved in the training aren’t trying to kill them.
December 20, 2007 at 7:38 pm
If Gerald is saying something morally credible, he’s saying that in certain very rare circumstances waterboarding might be a proportional punishment for refusal to divulge knowledge about a terrorist attack.
If it were an issue of punishment, though, we would do the usual thing: try the criminal and sentence him to his punishment. The very fact that there is this urgency to get the information from the prisoner rules out the possibility that what we are doing is a just punishment. We don’t sentence criminals to waterboarding, even though we do sentence them to lethal injection.
The very notion that this is an oh-so-difficult matter for moral discernment is tommyrot. The kind of waterboarding we’ve actually done to prisoners is torture: the very kind of thing we have executed war criminals for doing in the past.
December 20, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Another thought: it used to be that, during war, doctors would sometimes amputate a solder’s leg, by sawing it off without anesthetic, in order to save the guys life. It was a gruesome practice, but given the conditions at the time, a necessary one.
We may infer from this that sawing off someone’s leg without anesthetic is not always intrinsically evil. But would anyone conclude from this that sawing off legs as an interrogation tactic wasn’t torture?
Or suppose (leaving aside the anachronistic technological issues) that video existed of battlefield doctors amputating limbs in this way. If someone saw this video, and concluded that sawing off limits as an interrogation tactic was torture, would they be acting illogically or irrationally? Would anyone say that it was contradictory to say both that what they were watching in the video wasn’t torture, and that watching the video convinced them that sawing off limbs was torture when used as an interrogation tactic?
December 20, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Zippy,
Haven’t we already been over the issue that legal procedure and moral justice in the legal sense are not necessarily the same thing?
I don’t necessarily know whether they would be classified as “punishment” or “defense” but I’m pretty sure there are things which someone tasked with trying to get a terror suspect to reveal what he knew about an imminant threat could do in order to punish the suspect for refusing to cooperate. I’m also quite sure there are a lot of thing he could _not_ do. (I would generally assume that waterboarding was in the “not do” category.)
Regardless of whether you want to call it a punishment for refusing to give information or a means of defense against the attack of witholding information — what I am sure of is that it is not the physical action (waterboarding) which is inherently immoral but rather the moral action (torturing) which is.
The question at issue would thus be whether the moral action and physical action were ever found in isolation, or whether they were necessarily together.
December 20, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Thanks for the clarification Policraticus. And thanks for the post, it has been very enlightening.
December 20, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Darwin: you didn’t really address my point at all. Yes, in theory, in the abstract, in some societies punishment of a criminal act is not preceded by a trial. In ours it is. The idea that KSM was being punished when he was waterboarded by the CIA is obviously nonsense on stilts. It wasn’t punishment, it was torture.
As for your proposed theology of moral action and physical action: (1) that isn’t the moral theology expressed in Veritatis Splendour and (2) I’m not sure it is even coherent. If by “physical action” you mean something of strictly the physical order there is no such thing, since an action is some behavior chosen by an acting subject in an act of the will. In general it seems you may be basing what you are saying on a whole bunch of epistemic assumtions that I don’t share.
December 20, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Well, the “Waterboarding is torture” chant has fallen by the wayside to be replaced by “Waterboarding is torture if done to terrorists but okay if done in training” shows that much of what has been written over the past several years is just plain wrong. I suspect much of what is written today in regard to the matter will be shown to be equally wrong.
December 20, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Go take a class on Derrida taught by Bill Clinton, Phillip. You’d like it. It is your kinda thing.
December 20, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Phillip,
The change, to the extent that there has been a change, has been a purely semantic one. It’s not as if people had been saying that what went on in the SERE was torture only to finally concede that it wasn’t. So any inference that this semantic change is some sort of prelude to total capitulation on the torture issue is, I think, quite hasty.
December 20, 2007 at 10:48 pm
No the change is in people screaming “waterboarding is torture” only now to say except when it isn’t.
Zippy, if I want a class in Derrida I’ll just read your posts.
December 20, 2007 at 10:55 pm
“No the change is in people screaming “waterboarding is torture” only now to say except when it isn’t.”
Which is a semantic change.
By the way, Phillip, would you care to give a few examples of things you do consider torture?
December 20, 2007 at 11:00 pm
There is no semantic change. If one claims definitively that waterboarding is torture, then it is an intrinsic evil and can’t be justified for any reason. Now people are saying its not torture if done in training. Thus its not intrinsically evil. Such is not just a semantic change.
Here are some examples of torture:
Gouging eyes out
Dipping in Nitric Acid
Cutting off limbs
History will provide plenty more.
December 20, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Zippy,
Why isn’t waterboarding in training torture?
December 20, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Phillip,
So you think that when a doctor cuts off a patient’s gangrenous limb, that’s torture?
December 20, 2007 at 11:15 pm
No because it is orderd to the health of an individual. What I report as torture is so because of the severity and the damage that results to life or limb. Waterboarding in training would be so if as people’s reports of its severity are so. Waterboarding I would venture in interrogation would not be if it did no threaten the life or limb of the individual.
December 20, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Note. Previous to the recent discussions on waterboarding in training being licit, I would have held that no waterboarding could be done in interrogation. This under the belief that waterboading was intrinsically evil. As people now show, this is not so. Therefore I venture the possibility that it may be licit in controlled settings in interrogation as it is in such settings in training.
December 20, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Ranger – undergoes waterboarding to try to prepare for some level of what they may face if captured (they can also expect propane torches, hot pokers, gouged eyes, beatings, electrocution, but that’s beside the point).
Terrorist – also know that in their chosen path, if captured by us, they may be subjected to the dreaded waterboarding (but none of the others above)
Both choose their path knowing what may happen. The action is the same in both cases, both were aware of it before choosing their path.
Fear of drowning is a subconcious reflex action. Waterboarding is effective because it goes below the stubborn level of the mind and goes to the primal instinct of the animal to fear drowning and do anything to stop it. The Ranger fear is equal to that of the terrorist.
I have vague memories of the same crowd here declaring that waterboarding is torture whether or not our soldiers undergo it themselves. I’ve argued on the other side of this argument saying that waterboarding is not torture (IMO it is not) but the logic that says it is completely falls apart when the “everything can be considered torture” crowd starts to qualify intent and consequences.
It’s interesting to see where people break into the methods they claim to avoid.
December 20, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Phillip,
So you’ve changed your position. Should I assume that the rest of what you’ve said on this issue will soon fall by the wayside?
December 20, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Could be if reasonable arguments instead of snide comments are used.
December 20, 2007 at 11:50 pm
“Well, no. They don’t. They don’t fear death because they know they aren’t about to die and that the people involved in the training aren’t trying to kill them.”
I know – The terrorists don’t fear death at our hands.
December 20, 2007 at 11:52 pm
“TT: again, if you can’t immediately and without reflection tell the difference between training and torture, you need a few years of intense penance to fix your badly damaged conscience. I recommend you get started now, rather than leaving it to Purgatory. Nothing I can say in words as an argument is going to make a difference intellectually if you really, genuinely do lack the faculty to see the difference.”
Zippy – You’re the one who can’t see the difference. I’m completely comfortable with my conscience as given to me by God.
Thanks for the condescending remark though.
December 20, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Good night all.
December 21, 2007 at 12:47 am
Phillip:
No because it is ordered to the health of an individual.
So a word describing an act is just a physical description when that suits your so-called “argument” and it isn’t when it doesn’t? Keep going, Jacques.
TT:
You’re the one who can’t see the difference.
What an odd thing to say. The difference between training and torture is quite obvious to me. Mind you, I don’t know the details of how the training is done and it might well be immoral. But verbal skullduggery aside, they are obviously different things.
I’m completely comfortable with my conscience as given to me by God.
Another fascinating thing to say. I’m always working on forming my conscience, FWIW. I’m not under the impression that it is the sort of task one completes this side of whatever one’s final destination happens to be.
December 21, 2007 at 12:54 am
Given the number of comments, I admit that I read through them rather quickly, so I may have missed the subject I’m about to bring up: sorry if I “re-hash.”
It seems to me that a person who voluntarily undergoes torture in service to his country, and at the hands of his fellow-countrymen/servicemen, has a huge psychological advantage over those who undergo the same torture under force. He enters into the situation knowing (or at least having a strong assumption) that certain “checks and balances” are in place to ensure that things will not get “too out of hand.”
Also, if I’m not mistaken, a ranger can option out of his training at any point.
December 21, 2007 at 12:54 am
Zippy,
In defense of Darwin, I don’t see any incoherence or incommensurability with Veritatis Splendour in his making a distinction between the physical act of waterboarding and an act of torture. He is not saying that there actually exists human actions that are merely physical actions (as if the human agents in question were android or zombie-like). Rather, in examining an act of torture and asking what it is that makes it such, one can say that it is not merely the physical action, but the physical action in addition to other important circumstances (such as the intent of the agent).
A note to Phillip (if he’s still lurking): the other pertinent circumstance(s) in question can’t, of course, be who it is that is being tortured. In other words, the circumstance which makes one act of waterboarding torture and another training isn’t merely the identity of the recipient (soldier or suspected terrorist). That indeed would be odd. Rather, it must be some circumstance or circumstances which are more morally significant. For instance, the kind of circumstance you yourself alluded to: what the action is ordered to.
December 21, 2007 at 12:55 am
whoops…italics off.
December 21, 2007 at 1:13 am
…one can say that it is not merely the physical action, but the physical action in addition to other important circumstances (such as the intent of the agent)
One can say all sorts of things, but I don’t think it makes sense to say “the physical action” for reasons already stated. Also “intent of the agent” may not be incoherent but it is problemmatic in light of VS’s constant insistence that intrinsically immoral acts are immoral independent of intentions (that is, intentions beyond the object, the chosen behavior).
Waterboarding – understood as something done to a helpless prisoner, just as adultery is understood as something done to a person not one’s spouse – falls under the species of torture and is intrinsically immoral. It isn’t complicated, though Phillip and TT and perhaps others really, really want it to be complicated.
December 21, 2007 at 2:51 am
OK, since waterboarding isn’t evil, I don’t expect to see any more posts here going on and on about how bad and awful it is. Every single argument presented here can be applied to any number of actions held to be intrinsically evil. Apparently despite being told otherwise, intent and consequence are what determines the morality of an act?
Zippy, you’re quite the smart alec. I think we have a difference in what is obvious to each of us. I’ll just consider the things you say to be fascinating…
December 21, 2007 at 2:53 am
Zippy,
Abstracting the physical act as such as one element among others in a moral act is standard in Thomistic moral reasoning. Read, for instance, Thomas’ article on whether it is ever lawful to maim somebody (ST q. 65 art. 1). Here he takes the same physical act (cutting off a bodily member) and shows how this physical act can be an element of morally permissible and morally impermissible acts depending on other circumstances. Moreover, VS is not condemning all moral reasoning that takes account of the intent of the agent. Every serious moral philosophy takes account of this. What it is condemning are philosophies, like proportionalism, that exaggerate or misconstue the role that intent plays in determining the morality of the act.
December 21, 2007 at 2:54 am
I think we need to get into the object of the act, and not get sidetracked with intention or circumstance. After all, if intention or circumstance mattered, it would not be intrinsically evil. What are you directly choosing to do? The object seems clearly different in the cases of torture to extract information/ confession and training.
There is a difficulty with the term “intent” is used today. Anscombe criticized its use to denote something subejctive, an interior feeling. In Ancombe’s inimitable way of putting it:
“From the seventeenth century till now what may be called the Cartesian psychology has dominated the thought of philosophers and theologians. According to this psychology, an intention was an interior act of the mind which could be produced at will. Now if intention is all important – as it is – in determining the goodness or badness of an action, then, on this theory of what intention is, a marvellous way offered itself of making any action lawful. You only had to ‘direct your intention’ in a suitable way. In practice this means making a little speech to yourself: “What I mean to be doing is…”
There is, of course, an older mean of intention, something objective, and something closer to the object of the act. As John Paul said: “to grasp the object of an act which specifies that act morally, it is therefore necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the acting person”. So if you torture somebody to extract information/ confession, you “intend” to inflict pain and suffering on that person. Or, as George Orwell (I think) put it: “the only purpose of torture is torture”. For training purposes, the object is different, I would hold.
December 21, 2007 at 3:02 am
TT,
Certain actions are evil in their species. Proportional cosiderations (of intent etc.) cannot makes these actions permissible. Torture is such an act. Waterboarding is sometimes used as a form of torture. When used as such, it is an intrinsic evil.
December 21, 2007 at 3:04 am
Abstracting the physical act as such as one element among others in a moral act is standard in Thomistic moral reasoning.
Sure, kind of. But as VS points out, people immersed in modern scientific and scientistic culture don’t really mean the same thing when they say it, which leads to all sorts of errors. And VS itself is very clear that the object of an act is the chosen behavior – independent of intentions and consequences – as understood by the acting subject.
December 21, 2007 at 3:11 am
What it is condemning are philosophies, like proportionalism, that exaggerate or misconstue the role that intent plays in determining the morality of the act.
That strikes me as a bit too vague. Part of the problem is that the term “intention” has quite a few different meanings. VS condemns moral theories which deny that certain acts are evil as concrete chosen behaviors, independent of intentions (other than the kind of “intention” involved in choosing a behavior). Thus adultery and torture are always and intrinsically immoral simply as chosen behaviors, even if one commits adultery (say) because it is deemed necessary to do so in order to save the world from total annihilation.
Whatever hash we make of discussing the moral theology though, a trainee and a detainee are as different from each other as a wife and the neighbor’s wife. Discursive problems there may be; but only moral brain damage can inhibit a basic intuitive apprehension of the distinction.
December 21, 2007 at 3:21 am
“Waterboarding is sometimes used as a form of torture.”
I’m with you on the rest of what you said, with the exception that waterboarding has no redeeming facet to it. It is used to simulate drowning. It’s telling that our people get waterboarded to acclimate them to getting “tortured” by the other side.
December 21, 2007 at 3:39 am
Zippy,
I agree that we should intuitively be able to see the difference between waterboarding a detainee and a trainee. A couple reasons, among others, that a person would fail to do so are through malice or a malformed conscience. That may or may not be the case with folks here. I think it is best to assume the best. In any case, to say it is the case does not shed a whole lot of light on the matter at hand and might simply cause an occasion of sin as tempers and frustrations rise.
Also, thank you for fleshing out a more precise definition of proportionalism and (to you and MM) ‘intention’, both of which were alluded to vaguely and imprecisely in my previous posts.
December 21, 2007 at 3:52 am
That may or may not be the case with folks here.
There is a lot of obstinacy on the issue, and I see that obstinacy attached to the same names it has been attached to for a very long time. In VS, JPII in passing softens his criticism of some moral theorists who, though wrong on the theory, don’t call into question obvious cases of moral wrongdoing but merely fret over genuinely difficult ones (ectopic pregnancy comes to mind). The torture of prisoners isn’t a genuinely objectively difficult one. The Holy Father recently reiterated that ‘the prohibition against torture “cannot be contravened under any circumstances” ‘.
December 21, 2007 at 4:09 am
Zippy and MM,
I agree with you both that an act is specified by its object. However, sometimes the object that specifies an act is complex. In the Summa, Thomas writes that the object of theft, which makes it to be the kind of act it is, is taking another’s things secretly. The object is complex and is constituted of three elements (by the way, ‘circumstances’, for Aquinas, do not necessarily fall outside of the essence of the act- sometimes they touch directly upon the substance of the act itself). First, it is the taking of anothers things. Second, that it is done cunningly or secretly. Third, that what is taken is a thing and not, for instance, a person.
However, in the case of theft, the purpose of the act is not one of the elements which constitute the object of the act. You can steal for all kinds of reasons, none of which fall within the definition of theft as such. In the case of torture, I think the end of the act has to be part of what specifys it. I don’t think you can specify torture as an act without including the purpose or end of the act as part of its very essence. So I think that even though torture is an intrinsic evil, it is necessary to talk about the end of the act in so far as that end is constitutive of the act itself (the end may be getting information or breaking the will, for instance). However, when it comes to more remote ends which fall outside of the essece of the act itself (such as defusing a ticking time bomb, for instance), that such remote ends cannot mitigate the evil of the act.
December 21, 2007 at 4:50 am
In the case of torture, I think the end of the act has to be part of what specifys it.
I think not. I think the object is in fact a species of chosen behavior, in every case when we are dealing with intrinsically immoral acts. Veritatis Splendour says so quite directly. When we are dealing with intrinsically immoral acts we are dealing with concrete behaviors which are immoral in themselves independent of the reasons why that behavior is chosen.
The problem with trying to appeal to some particular gloss on Thomism is that modern/postmodern thought and context underdetermines the possible interpretations of Thomism in ways that would mostly not have been a problem a thousand years ago. People generally understood “the act itself” to mean the concrete behavior being chosen, and didn’t need it spelled out for them the way that post-Kantian post-Caretesian post-atomic-bomb post-Derrida modernity needs it spelled out. To be as morally insane as is modernity/postmodernity requires advances never dreamed of in ancient times.
So I’ll stick with Veritatis Splendour, thanks. After all it is the first and only Magisterial statement on the subject in the history of the Church. It says so itself:
115. This is the first time, in fact, that the Magisterium of the Church has set forth in detail the fundamental elements of this teaching, and presented the principles for the pastoral discernment necessary in practical and cultural situations which are complex and even crucial.
December 21, 2007 at 5:25 am
Br. Matthew,
Thanks for the good words…
Zippy,
The reason I’m trying to draw a distinction between the concrete act (to you like that better than “physical act”) and the moral act is not because I think there can be any concrete act by a human that is not also a moral act of some kind, but because the same concrete act can be performed for very different morals reasons.
I can easily imagine a situation where shaving the head of a detainee (coming from a culture in which that is a massive source of shame) could be an act of violence or torture. However, the act of shaving a head is not in itself immoral. Ever. The act or intentionally eliciting shame in someone as a form of mental torture is immoral.
Similarly, the act of shooting someone in the shoulder might be an act of mercy on the part of a cop who doesn’t wish to kill a suspect who was threatening him. And yet, the same act of shooting someone in the shoulder might be be performed at another time simply in order to inflict pain — say if you claimed you were about to execute someone for not cooperating, and then you shot him in the shoulder instead and then demanded answers again.
Now, there might be some actions, say feeding someone’s arm into a shredder, in regard to which the concrete action could never be performed in a situation other than the moral action being torture.
What I’m saying is simply that the question is whether waterboarding could ever be performed in a situation which is not a moral action of torture.
The question of punishment only happening after a trial is a red herring — I’m speaking of punishment in a moral sense (or perhaps some form of defense in a the moral sense).
I strongly suspect that the waterboarding of KSM could not have been anything other than torture, but I’m not necessarily 100% sure that it would always in every circumstance me a moral act of torture.
December 21, 2007 at 6:00 am
The question of punishment only happening after a trial is a red herring …
No, it isn’t. In our society we don’t punish serious criminals for serious crimes until after we have tried them and passed sentence. It just isn’t done. We also don’t stop “punishing” them precisely as soon as they cough up the information we want.
I’m not convinced that simulated waterboarding for training is immoral (though it doubtless could be done in a way that is immoral. As always in moral theology the devil is in the details: is salpingotomy an abortion? etc). But that is because simulated waterboarding isn’t waterboarding, other than as a transparent semantic trick. The relation (and behavior) between trainer and trainee is fundamentally different from the relation (and behavior) between interrogator and interrogatee, just as the relation (and behavior) between husband and wife is fundamentally different from the relation (and behavior) between husband and neighbor’s-wife. “Happens to be your wife” isn’t a circumstance in an otherwise generic sexual act, and “happens to be a subdued prisoner you want to start singing” isn’t a circumstance in an otherwise generic act of “waterboarding”: these are persons upon whom one is directly acting, not circumstances.
December 21, 2007 at 6:40 am
Jonathan,
You make a great point about waterboarding situation and the policeman situation (I think the parent/child one wasn’t good). However, my the two are different. In the waterboarding situation, the intention is clearly torture or to hurt the person so that he can give information. By “intention”, I mean chosen act. In fact, when one reflects on how waterboarding is done, there is no doubt that the intent is clearly to hurt the person. In the police situation, the police intends to prevent an evil. It is just that the outcome includes the robber being robbed. But the police’s plan was to prevent an evil that the robber was *going to do*. Now, if the situation was that the robber ran, I don’t think shooting the robber in the leg is justified. It is only justified when there is clearly an intent by the robber to do evil and one needs to defend oneself or others and prevent evil. So when the police officer breaks the fingers of the robbers, his intent is to prevent to be killed. The intention is not “hurt the robber.” It just happens that the robber is hurt. In fact when one reflects, there is clearly a difference in intent in both of the situations you made. A person who ties another to a boat has a clear intent to hurt the person. The police, however, has a different intent. So double effect applies with the police officer while it does not apply to waterboarding.
December 21, 2007 at 6:43 am
I have no idea why I said “ties another to a boat.” Take that out. I was thinking of something else. What I was pretty much saying is that the intent of waterboarding is torture *so that* we can receive information.
December 21, 2007 at 7:14 am
Zippy,
I actually agree with you that the object is a species of moral behavior; I just believe that having a certain purpose in mind is an essential element of the behavior itself. I can’t imagine a definition of torture that wouldn’t mention this. Can you provide one? Anyway, I’m turning in…
December 21, 2007 at 7:32 am
…Before I turn in, I just thought of a good example that might illustrate what I’m trying to get at. Take blackmail as an example. The object (behavior) that specifies the act is threatening to reveal information about a person toward the end of getting something from that person. An essential element of the behavior that specifies the act (or makes the act an act of blackmail) is having this end in mind (getting something). If you were to eliminate this aspect of the object and try to claim that the behavior which specified the act was merely threatening to reveal information about a person (without reference to an end), the act would be insufficently defined. You can threaten to release information without this constituting blackmail.
December 21, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Can you provide one?
Sure. Shorthand, torture is any concrete behavior which makes a person suffer as nothing but an object or animal: a behavior which extracts some fungible commodity (e.g. information, meat, an adrenaline rush) from a person by inflicting suffering. I’ve discussed this extensively at my blog and elsewhere over a period of literally years now.
Now you might argue that “extract some fungible commodity” is an end or intention, but I think that makes a multivocal semantic hash of things: it would be like calling “achieve an orgasm” or “depositing semen” an end in an act of adultery. I think we all distinguish between behavior and intentions more broadly construed intuitively every time we do anything at all, that the distinction is ontologically clear, and that difficultes which arise are discursive/epistemic in nature not ontological/deontological. We all know what we’ve done.
A year ago I discussed the object of the act as a kind of moral qualia here, for example.
As far as blackmail goes, I’m not convinced that it is intrinsically evil the way you’ve defined it. Yes, many acts are specifiable in part through broadly construed circumstances and intentions, and yes, these things are important in determining the morality of acts in general. But intrinsically immoral acts, acts evil in their object, are evil simply as chosen behaviors, period, no exceptions, no justifying them by reference to an intended end, etc.
In Quaestiones Quodlibetales IIRC Aquinas tells us that some acts are specified by ends and circumstances. But then he goes on to distinguish between these kinds of acts and acts which “have deformity inseparably annexed to them, such as fornication, adultery, and others of this sort”: that is, intrinsically immoral acts. So I don’t take John Paul II to be out on a limb here in some territory uncharted by Aquinas; I just take him to have reined in, as he says, “…false solutions, linked in particular to an inadequate understanding of the object of moral action.”
December 21, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Zippy,
This from the Catechism:
“Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.”
So the words I use are similar to the words the Church uses in its argument.
December 21, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Phillip: don’t fall into the trap of trying to use the Catechism for a purpose for which it is not intended. The Catechism is like a general textbook on the Faith for everyman. It is not and doesn’t pretend to be a detailed exploration of fundamental principles of moral theology.
December 21, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Shorthand, torture is any concrete behavior which makes a person suffer as nothing but an object or animal: a behavior which extracts some fungible commodity (e.g. information, meat, an adrenaline rush) from a person by inflicting suffering.
I think you’ve pretty much proved my point by going to the moral act (making a person suffer as nothing but an object or animal) in order to define why a set of concrete acts are torture.
That’s all I’m saying, that it’s the moral act that makes it wrong, not the concrete act.
And yet, of course I’d agree with Aquinas that some concrete acts are necessarily connected with a evil moral act — as in the concrete act of having sex with a woman other than your wife can never help but be connected with a moral act of fornication or adultery.
On the punishment issue, I’ll drop it, since you seen determined to construe the term in a legal rather than the more generally descriptive sense. (If I punish my brother by not inviting him to a family Christmas because he’s insulted my wife, do I do him an injustice by not holding a trial first?) You’ve also been ignoring my qualifying that I’m not sure but what this might be better described as punishmetn or a sort of defense.
Too many comments as it is, though, and a certain degree of conversational openness is required to get anywhere in such things.
December 21, 2007 at 4:16 pm
That’s all I’m saying, that it’s the moral act that makes it wrong, not the concrete act.
And what I am saying is that I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.
On the punishment issue, I’ll drop it, since you seen determined to construe the term in a legal rather than the more generally descriptive sense.
As is all too common when you and I interact, you appear to have completely misconstrued the point.
December 21, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Well, I think further explaining my position isn’t going to be worth the effort. But just to be clear to those who may be lurking: As I hope is clear from my comments, I am *not* saying that an intrinsically evil act can be justified under certain circustances. It can’t. My argument has been about what defines torture, not about how it might be justified. I don’t think torture can be defined without reference to a purpose or end. Zippy’s definition (which I admire) proves my point, though he isn’t going to agree with me on that. In any case, it was an interesting discussion. My thanks to all invoved.
December 21, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Brother,
Thanks to you. Perhaps this can be discussed at another time.
Zippy,
Perhaps not. But then that renders those referring to the Catechism in regards to torture in the same boat. Thus necessitating this discussion nicely aided by Brother Matthew’s genuine efforts at understanding what torture is.
This will be my last post for a while. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
December 21, 2007 at 7:33 pm
…though he isn’t going to agree with me on that.
You’ve got that right. Choosing a behavior which inherently treats a person as nothing but an object or animal is not a “purpose” at all, and it is an “end” only to the extent that the behavior resulting from any choice to behave is a certain kind of proximate “end”.
February 6, 2008 at 4:38 am
[...] that water-boarding “would be torture.” Catholics who listen to the Church know what she teaches about [...]
June 8, 2008 at 11:35 pm
[...] of some of its ordinaries (just as in adultery and murder), the normative Catholic teaching is that torture is an intrinsic evil. President Bush’s policies on torture are clear: Last March he vetoed a bill that would ban [...]